


There are no slaves here

by GlytheSector



Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Difficult Decisions, Gen, Personal Growth, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:02:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlytheSector/pseuds/GlytheSector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you achieve power and freedom beyond anything you could have dreamed of how exactly do you decide what you're willing to compromise to keep them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	There are no slaves here

**Author's Note:**

> This story features my Zabrak Sith Inquisitor Sareel. Major spoilers for the Sith Inquisitor storyline and characters. Nailani my Sith warrior gets a brief mention because my characters keep invading each others stories.

There were no slaves here. And she hadn’t hired any servants yet to staff the place. The apartment was certainly large, lavish and luxurious, all things befitting a Sith of her status. A talented pilot could comfortably land a Fury class ship in the master bathroom, while the kitchen properly manned would be sufficient to feed a hungry platoon and not even a Hutt could scorn the extravagance of the living room’s decor. Yet when compared to the ancient and grand halls that other Darths and Lords possessed, the kind steeped in rich family histories and legacies it did seem rather lacking.

Sareel didn’t really care for legacies. She was fond of the ghostly apparition of her ancestor, she was quite fond of anyone who made a repeated effort to prevent her death really. And he’d never caused her anywhere near as much trouble as some of the other spectres in her acquaintance had. But all her victories and all her battles were hers alone, they were neither the result of nor were they owed to the Kallig legacy. A fact that bluntly stated put her poltergeist patriarch in a foul mood.

But appearances were important in the jungle like world of the Sith. Those who didn’t invest in the future and boast of the past looked weak and unsure of themselves, a fatal error. Sareel had nothing to prove to those fools. She knew she was better than them. But again, appearances had power. They feared her. She knew that too. An alien. A former slave. The Sith were in a time of turbulence where old orders and hierarchies were being forced to make way in a storm of change. Sareel represented some of that change. Particularly since her ascension to the Dark Council. Many of the Sith were cowards, frightened prey so confused by the storm that they lashed out, even at predators. Their fear was comforting in a way. It reinforced what she already knew. But alleviating that fear had its advantages, by allowing them to see her as one of their own her enemies were calmed. Or confused. Both were good.

Sith would always see each other as personal threats and fight amongst themselves, when the contention became ideological however things got far too complicated. Sareel did not desire a whole movement of traditionalists uniting against her, she had enough to deal with stamping out and converting Thanaton’s old followers. Truth be told Sareel was not especially interested in the change or reform as others called it that was happening beyond how it could benefit her personally. Nailani saw it as both necessary and beneficial for the Sith and the Empire and perhaps even moral. A strange consideration for a Sith. Her favourite apprentice was inclined to agree, Ashara’s passion for revitalising the Sith and Jedi was impressive.

As far as the Apprentice part of the trappings of power went she could not ask for a better one. Ashara was an intoxicating mix of passion, belief and the sheer power and will to make her beliefs reality. She could be so uncertain sometimes though. And she was no more skilled at hiding her emotions than her Master. They could not afford such vulnerabilities. But Sareel enjoyed the strange trust required to share one’s weaknesses with another being. And the humour one could share with another when cheering each other up. If nothing else worked they could join in the fashion for wearing masks in public, preferably ones that would muffle the inevitable laughter at the knowledge that the other was pulling ridiculous faces under their mask.

The rest of her followers were a good start. Talos for example was an excellent and renowned archaeologist. With him he brought a degree of respectability and credibility to her truthfully lacking credentials to run the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge And he’d helped work on her reading skills, brought her all the research he could find on the Kallig lineage, always had a smile when she’d sulked about her terrible reading, her slow research, the terrible weather and the fact that everyone wanted to kill her. Xalek was different from Ashara. His reputation for killing and his dedication to her was bound to impress. But as foolish as it might seem she couldn’t quit trust a being whose journey to power bore any passing similarity to her own. Khem and his loyalty to her was a famous subject still in the halls of the Korriban and the Citadel. The fact that she’d bested and won the service of a famous Dashade Shadow killer, one who had once served Tulak Hord! And as a mere acolyte no less. Few knew the more amazing fact about his service to her, that he’d saved her from her former Master, saved her from losing her life, her body and liberty to the woman she once admired so much.

Now her physical appearance, that was another matter. She loomed over most warriors, never mind the slighter and frailer types who tended to share her skill for sorcery. Her back was broad, combined with her height this gave her an imposing figure when cloaked in the heavy robes she favoured. Rich purples, robes blacker than space were her favourites with luminous pinks mixed in too on occasion. She still used one of the only corporeal parts of the family legacy as her weapon but she’d had Nailani help her modify it and change its crystal. Some days she used a dull burnt looking orange crystal, others she went for a bright pink blade. Kaillig expressed his disapproval over the latter often but Sareel didn’t give a monkey-lizard’s arse about that.

Her taste in colours aside Sareel definitely fell more into the fear-inducing arena of looks rather than any beauty contest. She’d never been particularly interested in having her looks please others though so yet again she didn’t care. Better to frighten than please anyway.

Her skin was pallid, the warm tan she once had from working outdoors in the baking sun long lost to the slow creep of dark side corruption. That same corruption had spread across her eyes, turning bright green irises into ones the colour of fresh blood. The purple and black wasting around her eyes might look unhealthy but it hid the scars she bore there beneath marks of her power. A good trade. Her face had always been angular, skin stretched tight over sharp bones and an narrow jaw. Those angles seemed softer now as the strain she faced these days was usually of a mental or spiritual nature rather than physical. She was softer in other places too, particularly across her stomach where her indulgence in the sweet heavy foods she now ate had given her quite the belly. Now that didn’t look intimidating she’d admit but it was usually hidden under her robes. Besides it was soft and warm and felt nice when she wrapped her arms around herself to go to sleep.

Her hair was her sole vanity, once she’d kept it shaved (a lie actually it had been kept shaved with no say of her own in those days). Now however she let it grow longer, let it fall loose around her head. Flakes caught in it when she forgot to apply the cream she’d been given for her flaky horns, but it cushioned her head and tickled her neck. Her tattoos were a problem though. Not because they reminded others of how not human she was, she rather enjoyed their discomfort on that matter. It was the shoddiness of the work that made her frown. The lines were obviously done by an inexperienced hand, the shading almost screamed that it had been done in poor conditions with little access to ink. Altering ones facial tattoos may be condemned in some places but that mattered little to Sareel. She’d have them touched up soon she decided, and perhaps some new ones done. What old scars were still visible beneath the new combat won scars could be covered with ink.

There were so many things to consider. How she dressed, how she talked (her accent would never sound like a Kaas native), how she walked, her followers, her ship, her accommodations, her missions. All these things were hers alone, they belonged to her. Yet if she wanted to survive she had to think about the value and effect they all had. Sometimes it made her head hurt and made her want to go back to just shooting lightning at anyone who looked at her wrong. Her will for survival was fierce but so was her will for freedom. How much “freedom” would she have if she shackled herself to fulfilling the whims and wishes of others? If she compromised her desires for all those ridiculous, bigoted, foolish Sith who couldn’t wave a lightsaber without someone with real power helping them. She would not serve them and she would not smile and bow before their preposterous ideas about what it truly meant to be Sith.

She could almost hear voices in her head scolding her for her frustration. Not the voices of the ghosts she’d bound but the voices of all her different mentors. Harkun and Zash primarily featured though she could almost hear Nailani’s exasperated sigh. Perhaps there were some things she could alter for the sake of appearances. Not anything that mattered though. And she wouldn’t be doing it for those wretched Sith, for the council or for any of her teachers or advisers. She’d do it for herself.

Arrangements would have to be made to procure a new home, perhaps one of the estates outside the city that had been emptied by all the recent infighting. She’d have it repaired and expanded and make it better than before and fill it with proof of her power and artifacts she’d collected. And training rooms for Ashara and a study for Talos and guest rooms for all her followers and a library with cushions the size of asteroids for her. All the pets she’d found on her travels could be properly kept and looked after too, her lyleks, blurrgs, vrblets, wrigglers and larvae.

Though that brought up the question of who would look after them and take care of the place. Servants would have to be hired though how she would go about organizing that Sareel wasn’t exactly sure. She knew all about the slave markets within and outside the Empire on the other hand. Where to buy the best trained, the cheapest, the ones with the most broken spirits. She wouldn’t purchase any though. She didn’t want or need the reminder. There would be no slaves there either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this work. Any feedback or criticism is greatly appreciated as I'm quite new at this.
> 
> The self-reflecting nature of this work is a new style for me, not sure how well it worked. I wanted to show Sareel's struggle with the reality that keeping power is a lot harder than gaining it. Big parts of her personal story are her learning about consequences and how to plan ahead as well as finding an identity for herself in this new strange world of the Sith she's now in. I hope I managed to convey a bit of that. (I was also trying to not bluntly just say that Sareel is well aware that keeping slaves of her own would go a long way to assuring other Sith she isn't some sort of revolutionary. But that is definitely something she's not willing to compromise on.)


End file.
